Erin Conway

Difficulty thinking of or remembering right words to use in a conversation is a common difficulty for people with progressive aphasia (language difficulties in dementia). This can be frustrating, and will impact on the person’s social interactions and quality of life. Research has found that people with speech pathology treatment people dementia can re-learn words (to name pictures), however, there has been limited investigation into transferring the improvement to conversation.
 
This study will use speech pathology treatment to treat word-finding difficulties in conversation, with the aim of transferring treatment improvements to everyday communication and therefore improving the quality of life of people with dementia. This study also aims to provide positive evidence for the use of speech pathology treatment in progressive aphasia and dementia.

Difficulty with naming or retrieving the appropriate word from memory is a prominent feature of progressive aphasias that result from dementia, including Fronto-Temporal and Alzheimer's Disease pathologies. While there is positive evidence that people with progressive aphasia can re-learn lost words, past investigations have had little success in encouraging the use of the re-learned words in everyday conversation, or maintaining treatment gains over time.
 
This study will treat word finding difficulties for personally important words in the context of everyday communication by utilising not only the traditional ‘single-word picture naming’ tasks but also interactional tasks designed to transfer word use to conversation. This will lead to incidental and continuous practice of re-learned words, which is essential to the maintenance of treatment gains over time, and for the treatment to have a truly functional impact.
 
This study will provide speech pathologists in Australia, and internationally, with the evidence needed to promote speech pathology intervention for individuals with progressive aphasia. Maximising communication functioning through direct treatment will ultimately improve the quality of communication and quality of life for individuals with dementia and their families.

At the time Erin received the grant she was working as a postdoctoral research fellow at The University of Queensland’s Centre for Clinical Research. Since then she has taken up a new position as a Lecturer in Speech Pathology at the Australian Catholic University. She is enjoying being able to share my passion for dementia care with the next generation of Speech Pathologists.